“What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Exodus 4:1 NIV.
The next excuse I want to look at that Moses tried to use with God is the excuse of ‘the people are not going to listen to me.’ The individuals that Moses is referring to are the people he grew up with, including his family that was still in Egypt. Some of the people knew Moses and had known him since he was a child and Moses seemed afraid that they would not believe that he had spoke with God.
This could have been a legitimate concern for Moses had God not already given His answer to this objection before Moses could even say it. In verse 18 God tells Moses that the elders of Israel that he is being sent to see will listen to him. God is already working in them to prepare them to listen to Moses. As God lays out more of the plan, He tells Moses that He wants them to go to the king of Egypt and ask if they can leave Egypt to go on a 3-day journey. Before Moses can say anything God tells him that the king of Egypt won’t allow this unless God intervenes, which He said He is going to do.
Moses does not seem to be convinced that the people will listen to him or take what he is saying seriously because he gives this excuse to God even after everything that God has already told him. It feels as if Moses is still thinking that he has to rely on his own power and gift of persuasion to fulfil what God is asking him to do. Moses has not accepted yet that God is the only One who has the power and the persuasion needed to make this happen, Moses just needs to be willing to be the vessel.
Eventually Moses agrees to go to Egypt but it was a long argument to get to that point. I feel like we are the same way at times with God. He asks, prompts or directs us to do something and we forget that it is God who is going to do the miraculous parts of what He is asking. We simply need to be willing to be the vessels that He uses. So if you feel like God has been working on you about doing His will, I encourage you to step back for a minute and look at your response. Are you trying to fulfil the task in your own power?